eral senses. But Nietzsche has a keen scent for shades of meaning, and he thinks that at times these words have particular significations. For instance, to a ruling tribe or class "good" has certain associations which are quite different from those that it has to a weak and subject population—associations of power, self-satisfaction, and pride. "Evil" (schlecht), the opposite of "good," they apply to those contrasted with themselves whom they look down upon, the weaker, incoherent mass whom they have subjected. To this extent "good" and "evil" are like high and low, master and slave. "Evil," so understood, does not apply to an enemy who is strong—in Homer, Trojan and Greek alike are good; "evil" is an epithet of contempt. On the other hand, among those who are subjected and powerless, and whose predominant sentiment is one of fear, practically every other being is evil (böse), i.e., capable of injuring them—they do not trust one another enough to form a community, or more than the rudest kind of one, and this is why they easily become subject, or else disappear. These contrasted meanings of good and evil are very imperfectly worked out now—we shall come on a fresh and much fuller statement in Nietzsche's succeeding period.[1]
I pass over Nietzsche's analysis ("dissection" he sometimes calls it) of special moral conceptions, like justice, equality, rights, and duties; he goes on along the same lines in his later period and it will be convenient to treat the material together in dealing with that period. I also pass over his keen exposure of the part which vanity and self-interest play in much that passes as moral conduct, though every student of morality would do well to attend to it. m
IV
Turning now to his own moral views, we find him still with a sense of the greatness of a dominating idea or aim,[2] and if he does not soar so high and has not so confident a tone as before, he is nearer to life and actuality, or, as we might say, more human. The eager thought and expectation of something
